Flowers on the Mersey Read Free Page B

cross for where you live?’
    ‘No,’ she said shortly.
    ‘Then are you really wanting to go straight home?’ He smiled and she thought it was enough to charm crows from the trees and was suddenly wary.
    ‘Why do you ask?’
    ‘It’s a fine day and I’m free for a few hours.’
    People’s suffering was still on her mind. ‘Free from what – ambushing people?’
    He frowned. ‘Why go on about it? I didn’t ambush anybody, as you know. If you feel that bad about me, why did you wait?’
    ‘I don’t know why I waited,’ she said honestly.
    His frown vanished. ‘Don’t you?’ He seized her hand and pulled her on to the bridge. She had to run to keep up with him and was confused as to why she bothered. She was definitely annoyed at his presumption in taking her hand; it simmered just below the surface, but mingling with it was an unfamiliar excitement because what was happening was so out of the ordinary and he was so different from the boys she knew.
    She sought for something to say to stop her mind dwelling on the effect he had on her. ‘Do you know Dublin?’ She asked that because he did not have the Dubliner’s way of speaking.
    ‘Sure. I used to come more often when Mam was alive.’ He slowed down and matched his easy gait to her hurrying steps, guiding her round a mess on the ground. ‘Would you like to go a different way than this?’
    ‘No.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Hannah just might come looking for me.’ She did not like mentioning Willie now.
    ‘Who’s Hannah? Your sister?’
    ‘I have no sister.’ A grim little smile played round Rebekah’s mouth. ‘Hannah’s a real live gorgon who’d turn you to stone as soon as look at you. She’s from Liverpool and all she does is go on about the place. My Aunt Esther, whom I’ve never met, sent her because Mama isn’t well. I think it’s all a trick. For weeks she’s worked on Mama until all she does now is talk about when she lived in Liverpool. You’d think the place was the promised land to hear her. And then doesn’t Hannah suddenly start on Papa, but it’s a different story with him! It’s America, and the ships that sail from Liverpool to New York taking emigrants. You’d think she’d been there from her talk of what a great country it is. I’ve never known my parents to disagree but now, although they don’t exactly argue, you can tell that one wants to settle in Liverpool and the other in America.’
    ‘Who do you think will win?’ He sounded amused.
    Rebekah flashed him an embarrassed look and tried for a light note. ‘Papa, of course. Doesn’t the man always get his way? I take Mama’s side, and maybe that’s why Hannah doesn’t like me. When she first came she was all smiles – but that was when she thought we were only going over to Liverpool for a visit. When it became a possibility that we might live there for good, she changed. For some reason she doesn’t want us settling in Liverpool.’
    ‘What reason can she have for not wanting you living there?’
    She shrugged.
    ‘Perhaps she’s jealous of you?’ he suggested with a smile. ‘You’re young.’
    ‘Why should she begrudge me that?’ Rebekah’s eyes sparkled. ‘No, it’s because I don’t behave as she thinks a good little Quaker girl should. In her opinion, I talk too much, I fidget, I’ve taken up my hems – that’s the last word in flightiness according to her! I said I’d like to go dancing so she says it’s because I want to flirt! She spies on me when I talk to the young men in the street.’ She stopped abruptly and looked away over the glistening peaty waters of the river. She was talking too much. What would he think of her?
    ‘Go on.’ He was looking at her again with that expression in his eyes that made her feel – she wasn’t sure exactly how she felt. It was odd.
    ‘It’s not important,’ she murmured.
    ‘What is important?’
    ‘Mama getting better.’
    ‘What’s wrong with her?’
    ‘The fighting’s made